Two New Bands?

If you're here for the music, move along.  We're talking ham bands here.

The FCC has proposed two new bands for amateur use: 2200 and 630 meters.  Brother, that is low stuff, down below the AM broadcast band:

Right here, where the two red lines point.  BTW, the TV low band goes up near FM radio, not down by 30m.  What can you expect, I swiped the original image from a NASA site.

The actual frequency allocations are 135.7–137.8 and 472–479 kHz.  If approved, maximum allowed power will be 1 and 5 Watts respectively.  Those are very narrow bands and at very low power.  What's a ham going to do with those pathetic slices of the spectrum?  Experiment of course! Why, back in the 1920's, the HF spectrum was thought to be useless and so it was thrown to hams as a scrap, and they quickly discovered that it was good for world-wide communication.  So no doubt we'll also find some cool use for these LF and low-MF allocations.

If allocated.  We shall see.

Full article over at the ARRL web site.

Afterthought: Vertically polarized 2200 meter waves could have stunningly long paths across salt water.  A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation says that digital PSK31 signals could make the hop from New Orleans to Apalachicola, or Apalachicola down to Tampa on the proposed 1 Watt.  Challenge accepted.